Practical, hands-on guides from our database, cloud and software teams — the same kind of write-ups we lean on internally, shared for anyone running these platforms themselves.
Planning SQL Server or Windows Server patching but unsure which applications depend on the database server? This guide shows how to capture SQL Server connections every 30 minutes using DMVs and SQL Server Agent, analyse hosts, users and application names, and build an application dependency register before patching.
A backup tells you where your data was at one moment. Point-in-time recovery lets you choose the moment. Here is how PITR actually works in PostgreSQL, built by hand and then with pgBackRest, including the two errors that stop a restore dead.
Learn how to troubleshoot SQL Server Error 845 buffer latch timeouts and Error 5901 checkpoint failures. Includes root causes, diagnostic queries, storage checks, DBCC CHECKDB steps, and remediation guidance.
Importing an Oracle Data Pump dump is more than running impdp. This guide covers dump discovery, character-set validation, tablespace planning, schema remapping, monitoring, troubleshooting and comprehensive post-import verification.
A comprehensive production-focused guide to installing Oracle Database 19c Standard Edition 2 on Oracle Linux 9. Covers OS and kernel compatibility, Oracle prerequisites, storage design, MobaXterm/X11, Oracle Universal Installer errors, Release Updates, DBCA, NLS settings, FRA, RMAN and post-install verification.
Is your PostgreSQL pg_wal directory consuming unexpectedly large amounts of disk space while your standby server contains only recent WAL files? This guide explains how to verify streaming replication, identify what is retaining WAL, troubleshoot replication slots and WAL archiving, and safely allow PostgreSQL to reclaim disk space without manually deleting critical WAL files.
When the filesystem hosting Oracle TEMP tempfiles reaches 100%, simply checking the TEMP tablespace's reported used space is not enough. This guide explains how to determine the physical tempfile size, reusable TEMP space, active TEMP consumers, SQL responsible for TEMP growth, historical usage, and safe remediation options for Oracle 10g and Oracle 19c.
What a SQL Server upgrade, an Always On availability group build or an Azure SQL Managed Instance migration involves in practice — the sequence, the decisions that drive cost, and the failure modes worth planning around.
Published rates, what each model actually includes, and the per-instance arithmetic that decides whether a quote is good value — including why the cheaper headline number is often the more expensive one.
Extended support for SQL Server 2016 ended on 15 July 2026. Here are the four options actually open to an Australian organisation still running it, what each one costs, and how to decide between them.
SQL Server log shipping is a proven disaster recovery solution that maintains one or more secondary copies of a production database by continuously backing up, copying and restoring transaction-log backups. It is available in SQL Server 2019 and other supported SQL Server versions. It is commonly used when organisations need a cost-effective warm standby database without the clustering requirements and licensing complexity associated with some high-availability technologies.
PostgreSQL logging is essential for troubleshooting, performance monitoring, auditing, and operational support. However, incorrectly configured logging can quickly consume large amounts of disk space and create unnecessary operational risk. In a recent production scenario, a PostgreSQL 15 environment was generating more than 20 GB of logs per day, with approximately 150 GB of disk space consumed in less than a week. This article explains how to identify the root cause of excessive PostgreSQL logging, safely reduce log volume, improve rotation and retention, and understand the impact of these changes in a streaming replication environment.
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